09/27/2005 P&Z Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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Comprehensive Plan Amendment Village of Hardwood Creek page 9 To amend this statement raises the question of amending the growth projections, an important part of planning the community's future. This will be extensively analyzed and discussed as part of the overall review of the comprehensive plan that must be completed by the end of year 2008. • Therefore, we recommend no amendment to this statement in the comprehensive plan. Conservation Development Issues Stormwater management methods, open space areas, connecting habitat and trail greenways are conservation development elements described in several policy documents. The Parks, Natural Open Space /Greenways and Trail System Plan provides guidance. The draft Alternative Urban Areawide Review (AUAR) discusses such elements and will include a number of them in its mitigation plan. As an incentive, the growth management policy allows conservation development to be exempt from a number of the growth restrictions. The applicants originally intended the application to be a conservation development project. They are aware of the City's desire to encourage conservation design, and have been following the AUAR project. They also found the growth management incentives attractive. However, the exemptions from growth limits do not include the Stage 1 MUSA total, so a comp plan amendment would still be necessary. In addition, we need a great deal of information to classify a project as a conservation development in order to exempt it from the specified growth restrictions. Specific information would include such things as stormwater management designs, open space designs, long term stewardship plans for open space, etc. Such information typically would be included in a planned unit development /plat application. The current application for a comprehensive plan amendment does not include detailed information that would support exempting a "conservation development" from specified growth . management limits. Even so, we support the developer's efforts to incorporate as many environmentally friendly elements as possible as the development design proceeds. The open space, innovative stormwater management methods and attention to the long term management of these design features demonstrate good planning by the developer and are consistent with the City's environmental planning goals.